


Turns Out Inhalers Aren’t Gazebos! (Who Knew?)

by Eccentric_Grace



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Asthma Attacks, But only for a bit, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Forehead Kisses, He thought his asthma was gazebos as well but he was fooled by one of sonia’s classic blunders, I thought I was better at tagging, Love Confessions, M/M, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Sad Eddie Kaspbrak, read authours note because, richie saves the day before Eddie nearly dIES, trigger warning for asthma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:09:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23258200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eccentric_Grace/pseuds/Eccentric_Grace
Summary: Richie and Eddie have been friends for eight years, eleven months, six days, and nine hours. (Not that anyone was counting.)When you know a person for so long, you learn a lot about them—like what to do during an asthma attack that they thought had been bullshit, or in their words: Gazebos!
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 4
Kudos: 87





	Turns Out Inhalers Aren’t Gazebos! (Who Knew?)

**Author's Note:**

> nearly called this fic “ I guess you could say Richie took his breath away (and gave it back)”
> 
> takes place after the first movie, so unfortunately, even though I love her to pieces, Beverly isn’t written in this one due to her being in Portland :c
> 
> Trigger Warning for asthma attacks.

Richie and Eddie have been friends for eight years, eleven months, six days, and nine hours. Not that anybody is counting past the years, of course.

They met in Kindergarten, through their mutual friend Bill (Richie mentally thanks Bill every day.), and since then they have been practically joined at the hip. Completely inseparable.

When you know a person for so long, you begin to pick up on many of said person’s quirks—such as how Richie knows Eddie’s icecream order, his favourite type of bicycle, or how Eddie knows the exact dictionary definitions of well over a hundred different illnesses, sicknesses and diseases. You know, the normal stuff.

He also knows about how to handle just about any situation when it comes to his hypochondriac best friend. 

When Eddie’s scared, Richie is supposed to hold him close and distract him from whatever is the topic of such fear. 

When Eddie’s anxious, Richie is supposed to fight the urge to hold his hand while he mumbles comforting words behind him. He makes sure never to create a scene. 

When Eddie’s crying, he’s supposed to make jokes—not about his mom, never about his mom while he’s upset—and talk in a soft tone that subtly reminds him that he’s okay, because Richie will always keep him safe.

When Eddie’s having one of his asthma attacks, he knows exactly that Eddie needs his—

“Inhaler,” Richie says without thinking, not looking up from the doodles in his math book.

The health teacher, who must have been trying to prove him wrong in front of the class, stutters at the immediate response. “And—And how could you possibly know that?”

Richie then looks up, his eyes wide and looking even wider with the glasses in front of his nose. “Huh? Know what?”

“Know about—“ The teacher sighs. “Never mind. Just... Pay attention. The next time I catch that you aren’t paying attention, you will be getting a detention slip as your warning.”

Richie nods and goes back to doodling anyways. Across the classroom, Stan smirks into his textbook.

So, yes. One could say that Richie knows Eddie extremely well. Whether or not Eddie knows him just as well isn’t something that he likes to think about, because if he thinks about that then he’ll have to think about the real reason why he knows Eddie so well, and if he thinks about the real reason why he knows Eddie so well, his head starts to hurt and his chest starts to tighten.

While he knew that most friends who knew eachother for over eight years knew a lot about eachother, he also knew that it was just different. He and Eddie were different. 

He didn’t know why exactly, until that summer had passed, leaving them all scarred with images of red balloons, blood and teeth. As he carved initials into The Kissing Bridge, it settled over his bones in a cold ocean of understanding. He was in love with Eddie.

That summer had left realizations in all of them, of course. Another prime example would be Eddie himself, who had been hit with the shock of finding out all of his medications were fake. This had been tearfully explained to Richie one night, a week after they had defeated the clown.

Breaking usual routine, Richie had hugged him the entire night. Eddie didn’t pull away or flinch once.

Since the events, Eddie had started doing all sorts of things to try and break the mold that his mother created in his head. He would jump into the quarry first, he would stop wearing those dumb shower caps in the clubhouse (at least that was the reason Richie decided on), and he would refrain from spewing gallons of medical information on the group.

At one point, Eddie seemed completely reckless to the point even Richie was worried for him. 

“Guys, I’m fine. It’s not like I have any sicknesses or anything,” Eddie would tell them, something akin to a sneer in his voice. They all knew the sneer wasn’t directed at them. They hated Sonia even more than he did. (Especially Richie).

The Losers would nod at this, going back to their own activities. Richie would always look up to make sure he was okay, but would glance back down whenever Eddie looked his way. 

‘If Eddie is in danger, he’ll tell me. He trusts me.’ Richie would think to himself. He then would carry on like the rest of them.

However, Eddie wasn’t totally correct on his own knowledge. While almost everything in his medical history was false, the one thing that was correct was his asthma. 

He didn’t want to believe it. 

If all of his medications were faked, so was his inhaler, right? That’s why he had thrown the whole fanny pack away. He wanted them all gone. He didn’t want to see any proof that his mom lied to him his entire life ever again.

Now, he sat on the floor of the Losers Club, wheezing for air and not being able to get nearly enough of it. He was ashamed to admit he was crying, but he was, which wasn’t helping his situation in the slightest.

There wasn’t any inhalers in sight, and he couldn’t breathe.

Ben, Mike, Stan, and Bill were all frantically trying to help him—with Richie being late, of course—and they couldn’t do it.

Eddie could see black spots in his vision and he cried harder. ‘I’m gonna die because of a fucking asthma attack, because I am sick,” he thinks. ‘I’m sick, I’m sick, I’m sick, I’m—‘

He wheezes loudly, clutching at his chest. One of the other Losers says something, but he can’t even hear it.

Mike gets up and climbs quickly up the ladder, then sprinting away. 

For a few painful seconds, Eddie just lays there, unable to breathe.

Then, like a knight in shining armour, Richie drops down the ladder and scrambles over to Eddie.

Despite knowing that this is the end, Eddie feels an immense calm at the sight of Richie. Panic still floods his lungs instead of air, and then he sees Richie holding an inhaler.

Eddie takes it with shaky hands, and Richie helps him dispense the medication. Eddie takes a deep breath. Then another. Then another.

Eddie collapses into Richie’s chest, crying and hugging him tightly. “Thank you. Thank you, Richie. Thank you so much,” he blabbers mindlessly.

Richie hugs him back just as tightly, running a hand through his hair. The others quickly join the hug, each of them crying just as much.

“You’re okay, Eds,” Richie murmurs shakily.

“We’ve got you,” Stan speaks up.

They pull away after a bit, and Eddie wipes away tears from his cheek. His eyes are red and watery. Richie frowns.

“I almost died. Again,” Eddie says, still looking a little shaken from the whole thing. He clutches his cast.

Richie shivers.

“W-Why d-duh-dont you go home, E-Eddie?” Bill suggests. “You de-deserve s-suh-some rest.”

“Are you kidding?” Eddie laughs breathlessly, and then takes another deep breath just to remind his lungs that he can breathe. “If I come back to the house like this, my mom won’t let me out of her site for the entire year, and I really don’t want to talk to her right now.”

“Come sleep at my house,” Richie says immediately. “My parents are never home, and my room is clean-ish. I promise.”

“Yeah,” Stan agrees. “You should go with Richie and just rest.”

Ben and Mike nods as well. 

Eddie sighs. “Help me up?” He asks, holding his hands up.

“Oh, yeah, sure.” Richie takes his hands and helps pull Eddie up to stand. Eddie wobbles a bit, but Richie quickly steadies him with an arm around his shoulder. “We’re gonna go. Maybe rain check the quarry?”

“Y-Yeah, of course. You t-take c-ca-care of Eddie,” Bill says affirmatively.

“You know I will,” Richie says. He then continues to help Eddie up the ladder.

On the walk to Richie’s house, Eddie looks sad. His eyes are downcast, his shoulders droop more than he’d normally allow them to, and he’s relatively quiet.

Something tells him that his normal jokes won’t fix this. So instead he asks quietly, “What happened?”

Eddie looks up at him. “Huh?”

“What happened?” Richie repeats again. “How did you get an asthma attack? I thought that was all fake.”

Eddie’s expression goes fully sour. “So did I. Turns out my mom didn’t lie about everything,only some things, which almost hurts more than her actually lying about everything. Now I really don’t know what’s true or not and it’s really fucking with my head. Why would she do that, Richie? You’re not supposed to lie to people that you love, so why would she—? And she didn’t even—Just—“ Eddie’s hands fly up and accidentally smack Richie in the face. “Oh shit, sorry!”

Richie laughs easily. “Don’t worry about it, Eds. It’s okay.”

Eddie sighs and lets his arms drop to the side. “I’m just so tired of being sick. I hate it. I hate being weak.”

“Wait, what?” Richie turns to him. “Eddie, you’re not weak. I’ve known you forever. You’ve never been weak. Sure, you stop breathing on occasion but it never stopped you from doing like, a million brave things.”

“Thanks, Rich.”

The rest of the walk to Richie’s house is in silence, with Eddie looking a little more spirited. Richie takes it as a win.

He opens the front door, letting Eddie in first.

Eddie had been to Richie’s house before, of course, but things had changed a lot over the years. The place looked darker. Emptier. Photos that used to be hung on the wall had been taken down. Eddie decided not to comment.

Richie follows him in and they go up to his room.

The room had also changed significantly. Where there were superhero posters years before, there were now posters of rock bands. His room was also as Richie described: clean-ish. Some of his clothes were in a pile in the corner, with his clothes just being Hawaiian shirts and two pairs of shorts.

His bed was half-made, and looked relatively un-slept in. Eddie knew things were rough with Richie’s parents, which was one of the reasons that Richie would sleep over at his friends’ houses as often as allowed. Eddie just didn’t realize things had gotten so bad.

“Why do you look so sad, Eds? I told you it was clean-ish. It doesn’t look that bad, does it?” Richie laughs, leaning against the door frame.

“No, your room is fine, Rich. Don’t call me Eds. It just doesn’t look like anyone has been in the house for a while.”

Richie just shrugs at this. “I guess. You can go ahead and sleep in my bed. I’ll make toast or something and just watch television. Maybe we could hang out by the quarry after you get some rest?”

“Sure,” Eddie nods. “But, Richie, can I ask you something?”

“Yeah?” Richie looks up at him, fidgeting with his hands. He takes a step back, too, almost defensively.The sudden nervousness doesn’t go unnoticed by Eddie, but that isn’t what he wants to question about at the moment. 

“Why did you have an inhaler with you?” He asks, tugging with a loose thread on his shirt.

“Oh,” Richie sighs. “Um… I don’t know. I’ve had an extra inhaler on me since like, fourth grade? I knew you’d probably never forget yours, but I kept one just in case. Then you threw your fanny pack and stuff away a while back, and something just kinda made me keep the spare. I don’t know.”

Eddie considers this. He doesn’t know exactly what to think about it, he just knows that he looks at Richie in the doorway and he feels safe. He also feels… loved. Yes, loved is the right word. His chest warms, and it’s such a different kind of love than what he’s used to.

This kind of love is easy. It flows through his blood as if it was meant to be there. It isn’t like the pained feeling in his head when he’s forced to kiss his mother’s cheek. It’s like… It’s just… Richie.

It’s always been Richie. It’s been Richie who calmed him down from nightmares, panic attacks, and scares of all varieties. It’s been Richie who made jokes to calm him down. It’s been Richie who hugged, who trusted, and who protected.

This afternoon, it was Richie who saved.

Eddie is completely certain that he loves him back. So, he tells him this as he collapses onto the pillow.

“I love you,” he mumbles into the cloth.

A brilliant red flushes over Richie’s cheeks, and he stutters back a response. “I love—I love you too.”

Before Eddie drifts to sleep, Richie presses his lips to Eddie’s forehead. He smiles slightly and cuddles closer into the pillow. He falls asleep easy, feeling braver and less weak than he’s ever been.

Richie stays at his side, protecting him. And all though Eddie wasn’t awake to see it, he knew, because after all, he had known Richie for eight years, eleven months, nine days, and three hours, and nobody was counting but him.

**Author's Note:**

> original plot: (don’t judge the dorky writing )
> 
> Asthma??????,??? ((((“What stops an asthma attack?!?!?” Reddie(?) at the same time: “inhaler”))) ((Eddie has an asthma attack and hes upset because he thought it was gazebos and not real and he was actually sickness free, so one of the losers tries to calm him down whilst Richie comes into the clubhouse and is like “oh shit I have an inhaler for him why tf DIDNT you call me” and everyone is like “you what” and even Eddie is like “*crying💕💕💕* you what”


End file.
